20 favorite garden cottages & sheds

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Backyard home office

Martha Mendoza’s days are filled with deadlines, after-school commitments, and other pressures. Yet the celebrated journalist, teacher, wife, and mother―who won a Pulitzer Prize at age 33 for an investigative series on the Korean War―leads a surprisingly balanced life.

Her secret? This tiny home office, housed in a converted potting shed in her Santa Cruz, California, backyard. Here she can steal away from her domestic responsibilities to write, study, and pursue breaking news stories for the Associated Press. "Being detached from the house is key."

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Built into the hillside overlooking Paradise Valley and Camelback Mountain, the 53-acre resort is that special type of Southwest hotel: cushy and super luxe on one hand, but with “a spiritual, almost Zen-like” feel on the other.more